A rehearsal? For what? For that almost mythical Broadway half around the bulge of the world? Had the fool, then, not got beyond that? Yet?
Here he was, lord of the daughter of a queen, proprietor of a "gold mine." For Signet was not to be hoodwinked about the commercial value of Taai. All afternoon and evening, as through the two days following, while my promised cargo was getting ferried out under the shining authority of the pump gun, he scarcely let a minute go by without some word or figure to impress upon me the extent of his "possessions." To what end?
Well, it all came out in a burst on the third evening, my last there. He even followed me to the beach; actually, regardless of the Dutchman's nephew's boots and trouser legs, he pursued me out into the shadows.
"A gold mine! Don't be a damned boob, Dole. You can see for yourself, a big proposition for a guy like you, with a ship and everything—"
Upon me he would heap all those priceless "possessions." Me! And in exchange he would ask only cabin passage for two from Taai beach to the Golden Gate. Only deck passage! Only anything!
"Set us down there, me and her, that's all. I'll give you a bill of sale. Why, from where you look at it, it's a find! It's a lead-pipe cinch! It's taking candy away from a baby, man!"
"Why don't you keep it, then?"
The soul of his city showed through. I saw him again as I had seen him swimming in his cotton pants, with that low-comedy whisker and that consuming little greedy nickel hope of paradise. Even the gestures.
"No, but can't you see, Dole? I got a bigger thing up my sleeve. God'l'mighty, d'you think I'm a farmer? You could go big here; I don't go at all. I ain't that kind. But put me down in New York with that woman there and that there dance—and that tune—Say! You don't understand. You can't imagine. Money? Say! And not only money. Say! I could take that up to Glauber's Academy, and I could say to Glauber, 'Glauber,' I could say—"
I had to leave him standing there, up to his knees in the inky water, heaping me frankly with curses. I shall not repeat the curses. At the end of them he bawled after me: